FUSE TV - You Only THINK You Hate Nickelback, Says Chad Kroeger

Maybe you have been harboring a quasi-irrational, excessive hatred for Nickelback. Maybe you've mocked them. Maybe you've sung "How You Remind Me" ironically at karaoke. Maybe you've even mashed up two songs under the title "All Nickelback songs sound the SAME." Frontman Chad Kroeger has heard all the jokes. But according to the frontman you only think you don't like the band; you really buy their albums and go to all their shows.

In a recent interview with Men's Health, Kroeger was asked about writer Chuck Klosterman's assertion that "there's no risk in hating Nickelback, and hating something always feels better than feeling nothing at all."

Kroeger responded with a story. "This guy came up to Daniel [Adair], our drummer...We had a show later that night, and the guy said to him, 'I just want to preface this by saying I'm a fan of your band and I have all of your CDs and I will be coming to your show tonight. Can you tell me why 10 of my closest friends say they hate your band. I know for a fact that eight of them have tickets for your show tonight, and six of them have bought your last three CDs. But they all claim to hate your band.'"

One anecdote won't remedy all the cumulative hours society has spent hating this band, but according to Kroeger, it exemplifies the semi-real, semi-joking animus in taking shots at the group.

So is Nickelback actually the most hated band in the world? Or are we all under some surreal Matrix-like spell where everything we think we believe is really the work of a collective subconscious exerting its power over us, bending our belief system to conform to its will? This would actually make the best sci-fi rock musical of the 21st century, Hollywood. Have at it.